Primary Passages!

Well hello there! I hope all is well with you!  Today I am stopping by to share with you all about my new primary passages!  These passages are so versatile so let me jump right in about why they were created!  Whether we agree with it or not…we can agree that the standards placed upon our primary learners are continuing to grow leaps and bounds.  One of those being that our young primary learners should be prepping for the standardized testing they’ll experience in the 3rd and 4th grade!  One of the areas we were asked to work on was listening comprehension!  When I thought about my littles and their listening comprehension skills I immediately thought, “Oh we rock our listening comprehension!”  However, after our first district test for the year I knew my version of listening comprehension obviously differed greatly. I was used to asking my kids, “Who is the character?”  and “What is this book about?”  I did not prepare my kids for the higher order thinking types of questions they’d be asked…again right or wrong if their are given a test like that I want to do my part to help prepare them!  We all know that primary learners LOVE to learn and they love to THINK! These kinds of passages promote learning and thinking!  The questions that are asked on the follow-up response sheets require much higher thinking than that of a DOK 1 question {simple recall}.

So maybe a little too much rambling about why the passages were made LOL!  Now let me explain about the passages themselves.  First off these passages can be used for listening comprehension {the teacher will read the passage}.  Or, the passages can be used for reading comprehension {the students will read the passage}.  Along with the passages you will also have passage follow-up response sheets.  Below you can see the alternating passages for either the teacher {listening comprehension} or the student passages {reading comprehension}.  The student response sheets are the same for both!  This packet of passages included 35 original written passages that will get you through the entire year!  Most of all you will see I took A LOT of kid-testing into consideration when developing the layout of the test. There is nothing more frustrating to a teacher then when your kiddos work so hard on a test, but fail because of the layout of the actual test.

If using the passages for listening comprehension the teacher will want a teacher master set of the passages and response sheets!  I bound mine so they would be easy to flip through!  If using these passages for reading comprehension you can choose to pass out the passages and response sheets one by one or bind them together!  You can see that in action below!
Teacher passages and response sheets bound into a teacher master.

Below is a look at the passages and response sheets loose leaf!  In my classroom we take weekly listening comprehension tests!  So, I’ll read the passage and the students will have their response sheets.  For me I prefer to read the passages 2-3 times.  Especially with our young learners they need to hear the story at least 2 times to fully comprehend the passage.  I like to have the students meet me at the carpet as I read the passage and then I dismiss them to their tables to complete the reading response sheets.
If you are using these passages for reading comprehension the students themselves will be reading the passage.  Here is an excellent time to teach your students great reading habits like annotating the passage.  These are the things that they will be required to do as they progress through the years.

Included in the packet is 48 original written passages, 48 student response sheets, 2 options for the teacher master set cover, 2 options for the student comprehension notebook covers, and an alternate version of the passages for reading comprehension verses the “teacher script” written across the top.

Here are the included themes:
sharing, friends, apples, seasons, transportation, 3 pigs, 3 bears, 3 trolls, bats, pumpkins, veterans, scarecrows, five senses, reindeer, gingerbread, snow, penguins, equality, polar bears, friendship, be yourself, snakes, dinosaurs, moon, weather, ponies, rabbits, frogs, storm, butterflies, tigers, community helpers, being kind, koalas, ocean animals, election, little red hen, Thanksgiving, Christmas, chicken life cycles, farm, winter, bears, pirates, spiders, owls, fire safety, and St. Patrick’s Day.
I also thought I’d share a few ways the passages can be used beyond the dreaded “test prep.”  These passages would also be great for homework, literacy center option, intervention groups, reading groups, and whole-group reading instruction!  If you’d like to try out the passages you can download a free sample directly below!